This invention relates to mail item carriage and delivery. More specifically, this invention relates to a system and method for processing of mail records to improve mail item delivery.
1. Glossary
The terms appearing below are used throughout this document and are defined as follows.
Delivery Pointxe2x80x94a room or range of rooms within the destination.
Destinationxe2x80x94a site within the non-postal route location where mail items may be delivered.
Non-Postal Routexe2x80x94routes on which mail is not carried by the United States Postal Service.
Non-Postal Route Locationxe2x80x94an entity comprised of at least one building located on a non-postal route and having one or more delivery points.
Postal Routexe2x80x94routes on which mail is carried by the United States Postal Service. They include post roads as defined in title 39, U.S. Code, 5003 as follows: a) the waters of the United States, during the time the mail is carried thereon; b) railroads or parts of railroads and air routes in operation; c) canals, during the time the mail is carried thereon; d) public roads, highways, and toll roads, during the time the mail is carried thereon; and e) letter-carrier routes established for the collection and delivery of mail.
2. Description of the Art
Each year, large volume mailers send millions of mail items to non-postal route locations such as universities, military installations, hospitals, large apartment complexes and, government agencies. For example, credit card companies frequently send credit card applications to colleges and universities to be distributed to students in dormitories. Given the number of colleges and universities in the United States, the postage costs for such mailings may approach seven figures as the United States Postal Service (USPS) charges a per piece rate for each mail item placed in the USPS mail stream.
In order to take advantage of USPS discounts, typical large volume mailers sort and bundle their outgoing mail items according to zip code and deliver the bundled mail items to the USPS. Once the USPS approves the presorted mail, a per piece charge is billed to the mailer""s postage account. As of the filing date of this application, the discount per piece rate is approximately $0.16 for 3rd class mail and $0.28 for 1st class mail. The rates are higher if the mail items are not presorted and bundled. Accordingly, even with USPS discounts, postage expenses are still in the lower seven figure upper six figure range.
The USPS delivers the mail to the non-postal route locations in accordance with its standard delivery practices for the zip code area. However, the USPS does not deliver the mail items to the delivery point because the delivery point lies on a non-postal route. Rather, the USPS delivers the mail items to a site, e.g., an internal mail center, within the non-postal route location. Typically, delivery takes between 3 to 15 days. When delivered, the mail items are not in any particular order so they must be sorted and sequenced by the non-postal route location""s internal mail center staff to facilitate further distribution to their intended recipients.
Distribution of the mail items from the internal mail center to the delivery point is performed according to the policies and procedures of the non-postal route location. According to USPS policies, the non-postal route location may refuse to accept a mail item when it is offered for delivery or, within a reasonable time after delivery, return the mail item. The USPS has no responsibility for the mail items once they have been delivered to the non-postal route mail location and does not guarantee that the mail items will reach their intended recipients.
Heretofore, large volume mailers have made little distinction between their mailings to non-postal route locations and their general mailings. This has caused large volume mailers to incur excessive postage expense, slow mail delivery, unpredictable delivery dates and has hampered address tracking capabilities, Moreover, from the perspective of the non-postal route locations, excessive person hours have been needlessly spent in distributing mail from their mail centers to their delivery points. The inventor is aware of no system that specifically addresses processing and delivery of mail items destined for non-postal route locations.
It is an object of the invention to simplify the process of storing, sorting and sequencing non-postal route records.
It is another object of the invention to provide a method and apparatus to extract non-postal route records from among a group of mail records.
It is still another object of the invention to provide a method and apparatus to facilitate postage savings for non-postal route mail items.
It is a further object of the invention to provide for faster delivery of non-postal route mail items.
It is yet another object of the invention to provide predictable delivery dates for non-postal route mail items.
In accordance with an aspect of the invention, a method for delivering materials to a non-postal route mail location Is provided. That method Includes separating non-postal route mail records from postal route mail records and affixing address information derived from the non-postal route mail records to materials to be delivered. The materials to be delivered may then be weighed in preparation for mailing. Postage for the materials to be delivered is paid based upon the weight of the materials and transport of the materials to the non-postal route mail location is facilitated.
In accordance with another aspect of the invention, a computer readable medium contains a data structure for storing non-postal route data records for access by an extraction program. The data structure includes a non-postal route data table containing one or more non-postal route data sets. The data structure further includes a destination data table containing one or more destination data sets corresponding to the one or more non-postal route data sets. Each non-postal route data set has a link to the corresponding destination data sets of the destination data table. The data structure also includes a delivery point data table containing one or more delivery points corresponding to each destination data set. Each destination data set has a link to the corresponding delivery points of said delivery point data table.
In accordance with yet another aspect of the invention a data processing system having a non-postal route mail data table including one or more non-postal route data sets extracts non-postal route mail records from among a plurality of input mail records. The data processing system selects address information from an input mail record, compares the selected address information to address information of each of the one or more non-postal route data sets until a match is found; and repeats the selection and comparison steps for each of the plurality of input mail records.
In accordance with a further aspect of the invention, a data processing system is provided for executing an extraction program which interfaces with a data table assemblage. The data processing system includes a processor for processing said extraction program and a medium readable by the processor for storing a data structure for access by the extraction program. The data structure includes information resident in the data table assemblage used by the extraction program. More particularly, the data structure may include a non-postal route data table containing one or more non-postal route data sets. The data structure may further include a destination data table containing one or more destination data sets corresponding to the one or more non-postal route data sets. Each non-postal route data set preferably has a link to the corresponding destination data sets of the destination data table.
The data structure may also include a delivery point data table containing one or more delivery points corresponding to each destination data set. Each destination data set preferably has a link to the corresponding delivery points of the delivery point data table.